Grower Profile – Ulises Valdez

Highly respected vineyard manager Ulises Valdez passed away on September 12, 2018. This profile by Kelli White was originally published in 2015. We republish it today as a tribute to Valdez and all that he accomplished in his lifetime.

Ulises Valdez’s compact frame leaned against his dusty white pickup truck. We were parked on the edge of his Silver Eagle vineyard- 45 acres of Pinot Noir, Chardonnay, and a dash of Syrah that he once leased but now owns. The beige Goldridge soils that dominate the vineyards in this slice of Sonoma looked and moved like beach sand beneath our feet, while the rolling vine rows were lush but clearly meticulously tended. I expected to talk as walked, but Valdez launched into his dazzling autobiography before I was even out of the car. “You want to hear my story?” he asked, eyes twinkling, “here we go.”

Ulises Valdez speaks with great passion

Valdez is one of California’s most prestigious grape growers, though you wouldn’t know it by just speaking with him. Despite the enormity of his accomplishments, Valdez  carries himself with great humility. An emotional speaker who gesticulates emphatically, Valdez alternates between cracking jokes (often self-effacing) and tearing up during one of the many poignant moments of his remarkably moving tale. Though he praises his own dedication, Valdez seems almost surprised by his success, painting it more as a lucky strike than as what it clearly is—the deserved result of decades of relentless work and an irrepressible entrepreneurial prowess.

To say that Valdez came from humble beginnings is an understatement. He and his seven siblings were raised in a one-room adobe house in a small farming village in the Mexican state of Michoacan. Valdez lost his father when he was only seven years old and was forced to quit school after the third grade in order to help support his family. At age ten, he and his older brother moved to Mexico City to join their uncle selling clothes in a flea market. Ambitious even then, Valdez set aside enough of his meager earnings to hire a tutor and learn to read and write.